Memo: it’s the household economy, stupid

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It will take more than curbs on porn to win over women struggling with tight budgets

The dentist admonished me as he was drilling and filing away at my teeth. I hadn’t been for three years and he was appalled. Women, he said, had stopped coming for their check-ups. They see it as a luxury in these straitened times. Mothers bring their children but they would rather have a tooth extracted than spend £400 having it capped. A quarter of women now never go to a dentist, according to the Office for National Statistics. Hairdressers are half empty, while only voucher fraud is booming at supermarkets. Yet upholsterers and haberdasheries are doing well. It’s all about